


Baseball Dad

by YurikoNeko (AlaxxisSade)



Series: KKM: Father's Day Special [1]
Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Genre: Bearbees, Crack, Family Feels, Father's Day, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Misunderstandings, because that isn't a tag yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 00:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4080400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlaxxisSade/pseuds/YurikoNeko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's never said it before now, but he's one proud godfather/older brother/father figure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baseball Dad

**Author's Note:**

> Because I decided on a Father's Day series special. Because I'm already regretting it.
> 
> Because Vic reminded me that Conrad isn't that bad? Thanks? //who are you asking and what and why

“Yuu-chan~”

                I clearly see the hairs on Yuuri’s neck stand on end the moment Shibuya Shouma calls him from behind. Before I can greet my old acquaintance, though, his son grabs my hand and drags me out of the door.

                “Sheesh, every time my old man sounds like that, you know he’s up to something…. Oh, yeah, it’s that time of the year again.”

                Recently I’m finding it hard to keep track of Yuuri’s thoughts, something I’m still not too sure how I should feel about. “You mean summer?”

                “Yep, June, the beginning of summer. It gets old men like him hot and bothered and they start bugging their kids, y’know? Haha.”

                …There’s something slightly odd about the way he says that. But though it gets my suspicions up immediately, I decide that he’s probably old enough to start hiding some secrets of his own. No big deal.

                “Hey, Conrad, I know the others asked you to watch over me and all while I’m here, but I, eh, there’s something I wanna do by myself, so…”

                “I understand completely,” I interject with what I hope is a kindly, reassuring smile. “There are some places a seventeen-year-old boy wants to go by himself, of course.”

                “…Right. When you talk like that I suddenly remember you’re older than most buildings in town… Forget I said that, just hang around a bit and don’t get lost, okay? Do you have your phone with you?”

                Ah, he sounds so mature. “Yes, yes. I have it right here.” Eh, did I forget to charge it?

                But seeing as Yuuri’s already halfway gone, I decide that it’s nothing important, and just wave him off cheerfully. After all, this isn’t my first time on Earth. I can deal with being alone for a few hours. That’s how long things like that take, right?

                Right?

                A cheer rises somewhere nearby, distracting me from my thoughts. That park… That’s a baseball field, isn’t it? My feet lead me towards it instinctively, so used have I gotten to playing in the field back in Shin Makoku every evening. I still refuse to call that field by name, though, which is why Gurrier makes a great deal out of mentioning its full name in every other sentence when I’m around, despite not having much interest in the game outside of appraising the players from behind.

                It’s a middle school game, the players not very polished but more than making up for it in pure passion. The stands are full of people I can only call baseball moms and dads, rooting their kids on a Saturday morning. My lips curving into a subconscious smile, I take my place among them, settling down comfortably between a few families with a good view of the game.

                The game had just started, apparently, so most people don’t give the latecomer too many odd looks. Eventually, though, as it progresses fairly uneventfully, the father on my right figures it’s time to start making friends.

                “Hey there, I’ve never seen you around. Does your kid play too?”

                My kid? An image of Yuuri in his favorite uniform immediately comes to mind, and I instinctively reply, “Yes.”

                “Oh? Which one is he? Mine’s the substitute pitcher for the home team, he should be getting his turn in the later innings.”

                “Ah, he isn’t playing today,” I say hastily. “He had to go somewhere else for a while, so I wanted to kill some time and enjoy the game.”

                To my surprise, the man nods sagely, as though I said something inexplicably deep. “So he dumped you here, huh? I know how that feels. My oldest is in high school, and I rarely see him around during the weekends anymore. These kids just grow so fast, don’t they? Next thing you know they don’t need their papa around anymore…”

                Somehow, this man reminds me of Shibuya the elder.

                “Anyway, how old is yours? Or do you have more than one?”

                More than one… “Two, actually,” my mouth says automatically. “One is seventeen, and the other is eighty—” Eighty-three, but thankfully I catch myself. “—Eighteen, I meant.”

                Though compared to Yuuri, Wolfram would probably be around sixteen.

                “So old?” One of the moms turn around, having apparently overheard –eavesdropped on? – our conversation. “Wow, you definitely don’t look old enough to have kids in high school!”

                Actually, I’m old enough to be your grandfather. “Oh, didn’t I say? They’re not actually mine. I suppose you could say I helped raise them.”

                “How kind of you!” Mom number 2 turns around with stars in her eyes. Is it just me, or are the dads looking slightly disgruntled? “What about their mother? Is she a working mom?”

                Jennifer is a full-time mother, and Mother… I smile sheepishly. “No, I don’t think so.”

                “So you have to work _and_ help raise the teenagers? Wow, it must be hard on you.”

                Uhm, moms, your kids are still playing on the field over there… “Haha, not really. They’re not too much trouble.”

                “One seventeen and one eighteen, no trouble? Sorry, but I don’t believe you.”

                “Two boys, or a boy and a girl?”

                “Either way, it’ll be a handful…”

                “Both boys.” I don’t know why I’m still participating in this conversation, but somehow I am.

                “Ah, then I’m sure they run around a lot and get into tons of trouble.”

                Run around and… I can’t deny that. “Well, there was that time they wandered into an old part of the c—house, and got stuck for three days with a nest of bear—bees. A nest of bees.”

                “…….”

                “He said bears, didn’t he?”

                “Then he changed to bees…”

                “I don’t know which is worse…”

                “Should we call child protective services?”

                Ahahaha… This misunderstanding is… interesting…

                “Well, boys will always be boys, am I right?” The first man to talk to me tries to help me out of this awkward situation. “But they always find a way out of it somehow, huh?”

                I nod. “They’re very resourceful and determined. If they want to get somewhere, they’ll stop at nothing, even stowing away in a crate of fruit.”

                “S-stowing away…”

                “T-teenagers, haha…”

                “They sound like they get along well?” One mother ventures hopefully.

                “Oh, yes, very well. One of them is utterly infatuated with the other, even though he once challenged him to a life-and-death duel.”

                Their gazes change from curiosity to suspicion to sympathy. The dad even pats my back.

                “Good job, buddy, keeping them alive this long. Just a little further, and they’ll probably survive to become very… ah, resilient adults.”

                “Haha, do you think so? It’s true that they’ve survived a lot, from being shot at to going temporarily blind and being starved of food and water for days, it’s amazing that they’re still happy, healthy teenage boys.” Even though one of them is an octogenarian.

                “A-amazing? I’d call that a miracle…”

                “What’s the child abuse hotline again?”

                “Shh, don’t judge! A-at the very most, we can only call it criminal neglect…”

                My smile is sort of frozen to my face by now. It’s not called whispering if I can hear it, you know.

                “Maybe we should suggest counseling, or therapy…?”

                “Pardon?” I turn around slowly, to fix my gaze on the person behind that last suggestion. “You can say whatever you want about me, but I won’t tolerate anyone speaking ill about those boys, especially since you don’t know the slightest thing about them.”

                “W-well…” The truth is I wasn’t completely sure who said it, but the way the crowd parts to reveal one very flustered lady conveniently answers my questions for me. “T-then, why don’t you tell us more about your kids? I-it’s easy for us to misunderstand things unless we know more, right?”

                “You want to know more?” I realize it’s just her ploy to distract me, but I fall for it anyway. It’s just that, I don’t get much of a chance to talk to strangers like this anymore, people who don’t know me as Lord Weller, or the second son. And it’s nice to know that there are still things I can talk to others about. “Let’s see, I mentioned one of them likes baseball, right? He’s a very enthusiastic young man, but though he thinks of himself as average in looks and intelligence, what he doesn’t realize is that he has a certain charisma that draws people to him.

                “He’s naïve, and believes in doing his best in everything he tries. Even though he thinks he fails a lot of the time, I feel that’s his charm. He’s straightforward, too, and speaks his mind, though recently he’s been keeping secrets from me…”

                Everyone seems to be listening intently, so I gladly continue.

                “…But that’s normal for teenage boys, right? I don’t really understand the other one now, too. He used to be so adorable as a child, especially when he was just born. I still remember how he would follow me everywhere, wearing a dress… Ah, but of course after a while he refused to dress as a girl anymore. Somewhere along the way, he grew from an adorable little angel to a willful little angel. You might think I’m exaggerating, but he really is as beautiful as an angel, everyone who meets him thinks so!”

                I never knew it felt so good to talk about them to people who don’t know them. Back home, of course, everyone knows the king and his fiancé, so there’s really no point in bragging about them to anyone. Yes, I admit, I’m bragging. I’m just unbelievably proud of these two wonderful boys, I mean, who wouldn’t be?

                “They’ve matured so much recently, and grown into their own, and along the way some misunderstandings happened, so sometimes I think that they might hate me now… But it’s okay if they do, it was all my fault anyway, they never did anything wrong. Even if they did, they’re still boys, it’s all right as long as they learn…”

                The silence stretches on around me, my listeners looking at each other as though asking with their gazes how to respond.  I should stop, I should probably stop… After this bit. I’ll stop after I say this.

                “There was that time when one of them drew me a beautiful portrait, I still keep in hanging in my room… And that time the other one gave me a baseball park for Christmas, would you believe it… And then…”

                I can’t stop.

                “And they understand that I can’t be by their side all the time, they really do, and yet they still plead with me with those puppy-dog eyes to come back and I just can’t help it…”

                There’s just so much I want to say.

                “And I can’t help but compare sometimes, I know I really shouldn’t, I know that no matter who they used to be, I should see them only as themselves, and the splendid young men they’ve become…”

                It’s just so rare for me to get to talk this freely, to anyone.

                “But I still remember how they felt like in my arms when I was carrying them as babies, it feels like decades ago…”

                Just a bit more.

                “Sometimes I get so worried, thinking about what those boys will have to face in the future, they really have their road cut out for them, but they have to walk it alone…”

                All parents feel this way, don’t they? It’s not just me, is it?

                “…But no matter what happens, I’m sure they’ll pull through, together, because they’re the strongest boys I know. They’re brave, and dedicated, and they work the best when they’re together. After all…

                “They were born to rule the world.”

                There is a long, stunned silence. And then, someone says, from the back of the crowd,

                “O-oya baka…”

                It’s Yuuri, standing there with bags draped over his arms, and he looks utterly shocked.

                And then, slowly but surely, the parents around me start applauding.

**Author's Note:**

> The term I actually heard before is 'baka oya', but apparently that has a negative connotation? Anyway I went with 'oya baka', lit. parent idiot. Deep down, I believe that if Lord Weller can get a chance to take off his gentlemanly mask and all that angst, he's actually a cute cuddly teddy bear, just like his brothers. They're all different colors and sizes and levels pf cuddlyness, of course, but they're all cuddly inside. 
> 
> //it's late and I'm delirious and I have no idea what I'm saying anymore so I should stop 
> 
> //BUT I CAN'T


End file.
